Museum of Mental Health

Hopelessness, helplessness, loss … I felt each … like a pit in my stomach … as I walked through a state Museum of Mental Health on one of my recent trips. On one wall I saw a picture of a fearful child from years ago, clinging to the leg of an adult. The child was 10 years old. No one had ever stopped to give him a name. He was known only as “boy.” Abandoned and alone, this was called “treatment” in the 1920’s. My heart hurt as I looked at that museum wall. No child should ever have had to endure “care” such as this.…